I'm proposing a suggestion to the community. In a few weeks fromt his posting Star Wars: Empire At War is due to be released (the demo is already out). Now once the model format is worked out, I plan to attempt to add in a new unit or two as a means to experiment. There is some things I've managed to figure out quite alot but I think I would prefer a smallish team to do this job. The basic premise for the mod is to introduce the dominion war to the game in its entirety. Basically the Rebel side would be replaced by the Federation/Klingon/Romulan Alliance and the Imperial side would be replaced by Dominion/Cardassian/Breen Alliance. The mod will feature as accurate ships as possible and the good news is, XML is the programming language thats needed and the files are very easy to follow.

Proposed title for the mod is "Star Trek: Battle for the Alpha Quadrant".

Now what I would like for others are all sorts of suggestions, baring in mind a couple of things:

1) Its not currently know the full capabilities of the complete game so any suggestions are welcome.
2) Shiplists and alternative titles, this includes possible hero's as there is a command in the unique shiplist which allows a single hero ship to be constructed.

Sounds interesting...and also..since the game features ground battles as well...some one could possibly create new models for federation marines, klingon warriors, jem'hadar soldiers, etc....we could also work out designs for new starfleet ground vehicles, as well as dominion ground assault tanks....should be a very interesting thing to see...

CAR/DOM/BR
Special Breen frigate(possibly the 1 from A1)
Dukat's Galor
Obsidian Order Keldon
Wayuons(spell) Warship
Dominion Battleship(it looks like the dreadnaught but its smaller and the size of 2 Galaxys (Episode-"Valient")

You have an awfull lot of ships there, I don't even know if there are enough slots for all the buttons. I also suggest you split things up, but I don't know to what extend that's possible. However on LF somebody posted that somebody else already has added a race for the demo. I don't know wich mod this is though, my best guess is that it's the warlord mod featuring Zaarin.

You may also want to make alter the planets to resemble the ones in ST, though I suspect there is a map editor/map maker in/with the full game. Other things to consider are the planets that produce big ships. As well as the question whether or not we can produce certain ships at only one planet. Currently you have

Kuat
Fondor
Sollust
Mon Calamari

To produce your big ships, now what I'd like to do in this example is to make Mon Calamari not produce ISDs and Kuat not produce MC cruisers. Also both Kashyyk and Geonosis are required to build the Deathstar. Maybe there is something we can do with these planets. Also the planetary bonus is to be considered, though I think that will not be much of a problem for the major planets.

Things I had in mind are:
Remus, double mining income on all planets, also builds big ships
Utopia Planetia, build big ships, discount for Federation Sovereign in the entire galaxy.

BTW there's also a STvsSW modd planned for EAW. I have made some suggetions there as well as others. Anyway, here's the link

what about the galatic view are going to just do the alpha quaderent of the whole wilky way cos then u could add the borg in (i think u can have more than 2 races) and give them some kind of AI that stays in the delta quadrent so if u want u can attack them but the main focus is on the dominion war.

well for the galactic map, what you could do is set up 'trade routes' say from the bajor sector to the Gamma Quadrant, and have different routes in each quadrant for faster ship transfer. I dont know about limiting an AI, but Im definitly sure its possible, I mean this game is extremely easy to mod... I just recently helped out CptBenSisko in making his fighters smaller, his ISDs stronger, and a few other minor tweeks.

well I wouldn't say easier as a two year old could a2 but it is very easy to mod. The problem is that as the game is new there is no model converter yet and stuff like that

The textures can be got at as they are the same format as the total war games (i think) and already have a photoshop converter.

As for the coding files they are xml code which any text editor can work and although they are structured very differently to the a2 odf files they are easy to understand after a while of blankly staring at them.

The major difficulty lies in getting used to the new files. It may be a bit of a setback because you can't really use your Armada modding knowledge untill later on (and I'm not even sure you can use your knowledge at all because of the differences). Still, if you haven't modded any game so far (so you haven't been 'corrupted' by other layouts codes etc.), I think it's as easy to learn to mod Armada as it is to learn to mod EAW. Switchers from Armada to EAW might have a bit of a hard time and vice versa.

I disagree, I find that my knowledge of modding armada and other games allows me to find pattens in the code and in the general stucture of the game. Of course we have to break some habites but it isn't as difficult as you would imagine.

I was talking about those guys that ONLY have programming experience with Armada. I also shouldn't have many problems because my previous study had quite some programming in it. Though I believe it is quite hard to get from your first game to your second game (well, not A1 to A2, but you know what I mean). If you no longer get used to SPECIFIC codes it isn't hard to switch. Though a guide (such as the big book of modding for Armada) generally helps a lot.